After three long years, Malaysia has reopened its labour market for Bangladesh through signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and soon afterwards various complications regarding syndication have surfaced.
Although the Malaysian minister proposed sending workers through 25 recruiting agencies from the South Asian country, the Bangladesh Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment minister, in his letter, with his determination to follow the MoU, suggested holding a meeting of the Joint Working Committee (JWC) mentioning equal rights for all the licenced recruiting agencies and Bangladesh’s Competition Act.
A few days back, the Bangladesh Embassy also put forward a proposal for holding the JWC meeting to make the selection process of recruiting agencies online and automated, connecting the online system of the two countries. However, the Malaysian authorities are yet to make any response regarding the proposal.
So it is very clear that Bangladesh did not act negligently over the issue and our honourable minister has made the right decision and is on the right track. Those who are trying to say that he is not ready to send workers or there is no system at all for the purpose are giving absolutely misleading information. Meanwhile, millions of foreign-bound workers have been inoculated with the Covid-19 vaccines through the ‘Ami Probashi’ app smoothly. In addition, by updating the app, the recruitment system is being made more worker-friendly.
With the tactics to keep the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment minister under pressure, many individuals are saying that if Bangladesh delays in making a decision, Malaysia will take workers from other countries or is in discussion to do so. The question is — which country other than Bangladesh was banned from sending workers to Malaysia? The Southeast Asian country kept it open for all the countries (except Bangladesh), but many of them did not send or are not sending workers for various reasons.
ALSO READ: Malaysia wants 'syndication' in manpower export, Bangladesh says 'No'
If necessary, Malaysia will bring in workers from other countries — which is normal, and the country brought them as well but could not meet the demand. As a result, for various reasons, there is no suitable country except Bangladesh from where they can export manpower to meet their complete demand.
In any case, we hope the honourable minister will proceed as he has already written in his letter. As the guardian of the manpower sector, we do believe, he will protect the interests of the country and the workers as well as the interests of all valid recruiting agencies under the ministry without giving any privileges to any special agencies as promised. All the valid recruiting agencies are committed to have the confidence and put trust in him.
‘Dumping ground’
The Malaysian human resources minister always says that there are several thousand recruitment agencies in each country and thus he does not want Malaysia to become a dumping ground by giving everyone the opportunity to send workers.
The way of speech is very regrettable as the human being must not be treated as a waste of the dumping ground — it’s not a sensible speech at all. We want to know —
Firstly, in which of the 14 countries has he imposed limitations on recruiting agencies? Has he been able to limit his own country's recruitment agencies?
Secondly, the Malaysian minister might have made the speech referring to the employment, salaries and various problems of a large number of Bangladeshi workers during the 2007-08 period.
But at the time, did any worker go to Malaysia without the approval of the country’s government, calling visa, attestation of the Bangladesh embassy and approval of BMET (Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training)? They never went and it is not possible to go either.
So, Malaysia is entirely responsible for the mismanagement — neither Bangladesh nor any of its recruiting agencies. Rather, it’s the Malaysian outsourcing companies that should be blamed.
However, at this age of technology, there is no chance of matching the current recruitment system with the one of 13 or 14 years back. No online method was followed then. On the other hand, there is a full online system now.
The Malaysian human resources minister further said he would be able to keep control of the recruiting agencies if their number was less, but the question is, has he placed limitations on his country’s agencies?
In Malaysia, there were also reports of 25 recruiting agencies that would be able to work on manpower export, but in the face of protests, now 501 agencies will be able to work.
Moreover, how will he control the recruitment agencies of different countries? How had the 10 agencies been controlled when irregularities and corruption took place along with extra immigration costs borne by the migrant workers?
They just stopped taking workers from Bangladesh. And, for the move, the 10 agencies were not affected, rather our migrant workers and country suffered immensely.
We want to send workers to Malaysia, but not at any cost. We want to send workers there not by sacrificing self-dignity and selling the country, not to satisfy the personal interests of a group of people or to turn the manpower sector into a paradise of massive corruption. The labour market must be opened on the basis of parity.
If Malaysia indeed wants to limit the number of recruiting agencies, the 25 agencies are not required. If necessary, the workers can be sent at low cost through a dedicated licence or the BMET or the Bangladesh Overseas Employment and Services Limited (BOESL) or a one-stop service centre by incorporating all the recruiting agencies.
The writer is a former finance secretary of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA)
